witchcastors

[witchcastors]

I feel like not enough people know that you can just go do witchcraft. Like yeah, all the pretty and aesthetic things you see online can be really expensive, and if you live in a place where witchcraft is frowned upon it can be hard to hide things, but your practice can literally be anything you want.

Part of my practice is making friendship bracelets with colors of what I want to manifest. I learned morse code and tie my goals into the bracelet. It look like a normal bracelet, no one would know the difference unless I told them. Your manifestations and spells can be verbal and whispered to the wind, your sigils can look like doodled stars or stick figures, your altar doesn't need to be anything more than the tools you use (if you even need an altar). You can put spells together based on what you have and what the things around you mean to you.

You do not need to buy things for witchcraft or have a very visible practice, just do what feels right for you. Your practice is what you make it.

[witchcastors]

Love and light (my enemies on fire).

[witchcastors]

How old were you at the lowest point in your life? Reblog this and put it in the tags, plus your current age maybe. I'm trying to see something.

[witchcastors]

Woven Roots: Recovering the Healing Plant Traditions of Jews and Their Neighbors in Eastern Europe

A comprehensive guide to the medicinal plants and folk healers of Eastern Europe’s Pale of Settlement—mapping ancestral folkways, herbal traditions, and shared legacies of Ashkenazi Jews and their neighbors Includes a materia medica of healing plants and their traditional applications A companion guide to Ashkenazi Herbalism, Woven Roots explores the rich history of plant-based medicine and folk healing traditions of Eastern Europe from 1600 through the present. Authors Deatra Cohen and Adam Siegel map the interwoven histories of the peoples of the Pale of Settlement, revealing untold stories of cooperation, shared knowledge, and mutual aid. The book shares how the people in this region—so often associated with conflict—often thrived in deep and reciprocal relationships with the land and each other. Tending and relying on the natural world, caring for their communities, and transmitting medicinal legacies from generation to generation, the healers of the Pale served as profound points of connection, interdependence, and life-sustaining knowledge. The authors offer illuminating—and surprising—original research on:

The pivotal but historically overlooked contributions of women folk healers

Deep, ancestrally rooted traditions of care for land and nature among Ashkenazi Jews

The rich cultural exchanges among Jews, Muslims, and Christians that allowed life in the Pale to flourish

Newly discovered recipes

Enduring legacies of mutual aid and community interdependence

How long-lost links between Eastern and Western folk knowledge can shed new light on your heritage and ancestral connections

Traditional magical practices of the Ashkenazim

This book includes an illustrated materia medica with plant names in Yiddish, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, and more. Informed by years of field and academic research, Woven Roots recovers the legacies of Jewish healers beyond myth, offering insights into the healing wisdom and interethnic cultural exchanges among marginalized groups in Eastern Europe and Eurasia.

BUY YOUR COPY

[witchcastors]

Pro tip for getting to know your local native wildlife as a Hellenic polytheist!!

🌿🌸🌹🌷🌼🪻🐝🐍🐙🦀🦭🪼🦦🐬🦆🦌🦉🦇

I was just messing around with an app I just downloaded, called iNat Next, developed by iNaturalist. (Super cool app, definitely recommend!)

When you enable your location, it shows you a bunch of native species (plants and animals!) local to your area. I was browsing through the native species in my area, and came across coyote brush. This is one of the first plants I learned to identify in summer camp as a kid, and it always makes me happy to see it because it reminds me of my childhood and hiking in the mountains in California.

And one of the things I noticed is that the scientific name is Baccharis pilularis. The genus name, Baccharis, comes from Bacchus, the Roman god (aka the Greek god Dionysus). It kind of hit me, like, oh, DUH…

✨ Scientific names for wildlife come from Latin mostly, and some of them include Greek roots. ✨

I couldn’t find any “official” reasoning for this “Bacchus” naming choice for this genus. But the more I thought about it, there are a few reasons that make sense to me. (Keep in mind that the Baccharis genus is massive and I am not an expert in plants so I can’t speak for all of the species in this genus, I’m just going off what I know about coyote brush!)

Coyote brush smells ✨suuuuper✨ strong. In a really beautiful earthy way. I love the smell of it. Whenever I see it along trails, I will rub my fingers against the leaves and inhale the scent because it is just so delicious!! I would even call the smell “intoxicating” in a way.

Jumping off that intoxication note, coyote brush is moderately toxic. To animals mostly, but can also cause stomach issues with humans. It’s not necessarily “poisonous” but can cause irritation and shouldn’t be consumed.

This is my main reason for seeing a connection however: This genus is generally known to be a great source of nectar for pollinators. When coyote brush is in bloom in the fall, bees and other pollinators swarm to it like crazy. Like when you’re walking by, you hear the buzzing way before you see the plant or the pollinators. It totally resembles a festival similar to Bacchanalia or other Dionysian celebrations, involving music and wine and feasting and, of course, sensuality and mating. The scene of a coyote brush plant in full bloom contains basically all of these elements - bees and other pollinators (btw, bees you see outside of a hive are most likely female, similar to the female followers of Dionysus known as Maenads) getting drunk off nectar, in a frenzied feast, buzzing loudly (“music”), and assisting in the plant’s reproductive cycle. The coyote brush is sticky (this is year-round, the leaves and stems contain oils that make it feel sticky, but it is even more so when it’s in bloom), it looks like it’s just oozing “honey” or “nectar” or whatever you wanna call it. Which also reminded me of the thyrsus (the staff Dionysus is often depicted with) because it contains plant elements like vines and pine cones (a seed) and sometimes is described as “dripping with honey” (according to Euripides in the Bacchae). Pollinators swarm to the plant and it becomes this huge loud frenzy of insects getting drunk on the nectar. (I’ve included a video link below just as an example)

Anyway, my point here is that you should pay attention to the scientific names of plants and animals!!!

Latin and Greek roots can give you hints to associations with deities, that you might not have considered otherwise because these species may not have been native to the Mediterranean at all.

I would’ve never associated coyote brush with Dionysus until I took the time to find those connections. I’m definitely going to be adding coyote brush to my list of UPG correspondences for Dionysus now!!

Thank you for coming to my TED talk. 🙏🏻✨

[witchcastors]

“At midnight, in the month of June, I stand beneath the mystic moon.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

[witchcastors]

lithuanian grass weaving 🌾

[witchcastors]

Tied to the Land

"Although by the 18th century the clans held title-deeds to their lands, in the main these charters were given in recognition of the fact that they had held these lands since time immemorial, a ghlaive - by the sword. This does not mean that they had come in and taken the land by force, but that they were a warrior race who held their lands against all incomers through their bravery and skill at arms. Surrounded by their kin, they were tied to the land as the animals and birds that lived in the Highlands: this was their territory."

― Stuart McHardy, “School of the Moon: The Highland Cattle-Raiding Tradition”

see also: #highlands, #quote

[witchcastors]

This is the solstice, the still point of the sun, its cusp and midnight, the year's threshold and unlocking, where the past lets go of and becomes the future; the place of caught breath, the door of a vanished house left ajar.

— Margaret Atwood. (via meg's oldfarmhouse)

[witchcastors]

Sometimes you have to step out of your comfort zone and read that book that's more than a decade or even century old to learn more about magic and witchery.

You have to interact with literature and media that isn't within your own echo chamber.

You need regular confrontations with opinions and ideas outside your own bubble otherwise you. will. not. grow.

You must be able to read things critically, knowing that picking up a book and reading it does not equal you believing every word.

Learn about how others view the world, learn how people's beliefs work, learn how to intake information without assuming that every bit of information is on a binary of "good" or "bad" information.

This is the witchy version of me telling you, lovingly, to go touch grass.

[witchcastors]

“Love doesn’t always mean fireworks. Sometimes love is a slow burn that keeps you warm, and sometimes it’s a bonfire that can’t be contained.”

— Megan Hart, All the Secrets We Keep

[witchcastors]

She always takes my breath away.

[witchcastors]

A chill in the room

You're the silence in the space

The pull of the moon

On the blood in my veins

[witchcastors]

tips for adhd witches!

[[before you expand: LONG text post!!]]

I got diagnosed only a couple months ago, but I have been practicing witchcraft for a little bit now. So in retrospect, here is stuff that I realized I have been doing to cope the whole time, and some new things I'm tinkering with :) Please feel free to leave your own tips or thoughts!

At all costs, avoid promising gods and spirits that YOU WILL uphold a rigid routine.

Just do not promise to give daily offerings! JUST DON'T DO IT. If you struggle with upholding a regular routine, do not promise gods or spirits you will uphold a routine for them. You should only promise things you are confident you can deliver. ((If you identify as a beginner witch it's my personal belief that you should not be promising anyone anything.))

Delete from your mindset that all witches are supposed to uphold rigid routines.

Give yourself breathing room: if you want to give scheduled offerings, maybe do one on the full moon. Or, plan it to coincide with other activities that interest you, and that you're likely to show up for.

Unless you have a few hours a week to devote to your practice, you should probably not be dedicating yourself to doing daily anything.

Rigid routine is not the only way to get regular experience with magic, build relationships with gods or spirits, or improve in your craft! You simply do not have to promise yourself or anyone else that you will do X actions at Y times.

Instead of having "do X for Y minutes on Z days" routines, try developing a streamlined ritual you can fit in anywhere for the really important stuff.

Maybe there are some really important things in your practice that you want to do on a regular basis. Maybe these are things like:

Quick personal shielding

Acknowledging and honoring spirits

General offering

Prayer for guidance

Instead of saying "I'll do shielding for 5 minutes every day after breakfast, then of course my offering ritual-", you can put a streamlined (short, easy) ritual together where you do all four of these things at once.

Deep breaths, acknowledge and honor the spirits, ask for assistance in raising a shield, offering excess raised energy to them, and praying for guidance in the upcoming task.

It should take maybe like, 2 minutes tops.

Then, slot this streamlined ritual in before most practice activities. Like:

Before other energy work

Before divination

Before spellwork

Or, use it as a sort of 'generic' access point of connection and perform this ritual:

When you shower, to calm down from the day

When you're on transit to prepare for the upcoming day

When you're feeling grateful and want to share the moment with the spirits

When you're feeling sad and need support

Instead of forcing important actions into routines that may be hard to follow, find a way to carry these actions around with you in an accessible ritual, like carrying snacks around in a bag. This way you can use other exciting activities, or other life events, as a reminder to practice your ritual of important things :)

Build a clear system of omens for yourself. Omens can intrude on your daily life and get your attention.

Maybe you have alarm blindness, forget to do divination, forget to check in with spells - so asking for omens can be a huge help. They are spontaneous messages that catch your eye. Helpful!

Research cultural omens

Research omens in your magical tradition

Journal and brainstorm personal omens

Write out, for yourself, a short list of personal omens.

Solid black pigeons mean a spirit wants attention. Seeing your favorite tree species means a spell was successful. Three gray dots means a spell failed. The scent of cinnamon buns means fortune is headed your way.

Perform a ritual announcing your chosen omens to the Powers That Be. Invite those Powers, Yourself, Life, the Universe, and Everything to send you true, accurate, and helpful messages through these omens.

Working with omens in this way is a skill that evolves over time. Your personal omen system will evolve over time if you use it. Think of it as another form of divination!

(Tip: Combine symbols with colors for an advanced system that's easy to remember. Oak trees are prosperity, but black means slow movement, red means powerful, and white means failure. After a spell you see a plumbing truck with a red oak tree logo; powerful prosperity. Etc.)

Build all your spells, rituals, and everything with the foresight that you are probably going to forget about it or not return to it for a long time.

Employ foresight and:

Encode retirement/shutdown functions into your spells!! Do you want the spell to burn out completely and leave the vessel hollow so you don't have to deal with the vessel later on? Specify that! Do you want the spell to go to 'power saver mode' and hibernate so you can save the vessel and recharge it later? Specify!

ENCODE OMENS INTO SPELLS TO REMIND YOU TO TAKE ACTIONS! "This spell brings me financial benefit, and when it runs low, I will see my omen of slow growth - a solid black tree."

Assume that you are going to completely forget that you're able to take care of this problem, so encode the spells assuming you will never remember to deal with this again:

Spell for people that will remember they want to deal with Monica (they will also be working with wards, divination, and subtle cunning): "Stop Monica at the front desk from assaulting me with her dark energies, or else limit how much of her energy can reach me."

Spell for people that are going to completely forget this is an issue they can take care of and won't do another spell on it for maybe 18 months: "Stop Monica from assaulting me with her dark energies, or reveal to everyone in the office her dark nature, but if neither of these things is possible, change something in the office so that we never interact again."

Assume you will forget about individual spells, that you will accumulate way to many spells than you can individually attend to, and that you may never take final steps like cleansing and deconstructing old spell vessels.

Build a spellcasting altar, or a spell recharging altar, where you store up all your vessels. Recharge them all at once, as often as you remember to.

Poor plan: "And when this vessel runs down I will recharge it with the waxing moon as I stand under the orange tree-" More tenable plan: "And when this vessel runs down let it drink energy from my altar; let it take up any energy that suits it; let it feed on what is available to it, according to its needs."

Focus on learning how to tie spells to external energy sources so they will stay charged for way longer.

For easy deconstruction, set blanket conditions for every vessel that it be undone and the magic erased if you take a simple action. This is called a kill code. You bake it into spells and it makes deconstruction way easier.

Try developing a barbarous word of undoing and using it every time you want to undo a vessel or a spell; this word will gain power and can become very helpful in other ways.

Once again, plan spells with the foresight that it will be difficult/unlikely for you to re-engage for formal deconstruction procedures. So, anticipate your future needs during spellcasting: "And if I ever open this jar and take out the things inside it, let this spell be released and return to the earth, let it fade away without trouble and nourish anything around it as fallen logs nourish the forest floor." This way, you know that if you accidentally forget about a spell or just take it apart, the magic already has instructions to safely dissipate and you don't have to worry.

Develop a visual language to remind you of what collected objects and spell vessels are.

This folds in real nice with a personal omen system!!

Use a combination of colors, established symbols (planetary, alchemical), and personal symbols to develop a visual conlang that helps you keep track of what things are.

If applicable, decorate or modify spell vessels so you can tell at a glance what the spell is for (violet symbol of Venus next to a paw: a spell to improve relationships with the spirits that help you with psychism)

Build a system that makes intuitive sense to you, perhaps folding in with your color correspondence associations, magical headcannon, or any other mnemonic device:

All the spells in jars are protective

Everything that's tied into a witch's ladder is about prosperity

If it has a red X on it, that's a hex

If it has a 7-pointed star, it involves your dragon guide

If you store it in a bag that has blue on it (blue print, blue button, blue tie-string) then that object is related to cleansing

Your personal visual language will gain its own power over time if used regularly, in the way that egrigores or sigils can gain power if used consistently over time :) It can become a real magical tool, not just a mnemonic device!

During spirit work, just clearly communicate that your sporadic presence has nothing to do with your dedication 🤷

When you conjure/talk to/pray to gods, spirits, or anything, address the fact that your communication/rituals/etc ARE going to be sporadic. Explain yourself and ask the spirits to extend understanding.

Some spirits/gods/etc are going to demand regular routine. AND IF THEY EXPECT THAT, then you guys need to get on the same page ASAP as to whether or not that's possible.

Spirits can be incredibly forgiving and understanding, but unless you tell them why you are sometimes around and sometimes not, they do not necessarily know what's going on.

Your spirit guide may have not read the DSM-5. Obelon the Fox-Man might not be up-to-date with the 2025 diagnosis criteria for ADHD, and Obelon might not recognize that you are struggling with a disorder that can mimic inattentiveness. Obelon might be asking why you appear to be so enthusiastic, and yet only call for him once every 5 weeks.

Just explain!! Explain what you are comfortable explaining. Give them reassurances and ask them to not misinterpret your ability to be present.

At all costs, avoid making your path a carrot that you dangle in front of yourself to try and force yourself to fix your brain through sheer force of will.

If the way you talk to yourself about your path sounds like someone struggling with unhealthy dieting, maybe it's time to readjust.

"I just need to do my daily offerings, on schedule, for two weeks. Then I will have earned researching tarot spells."

Maybe it's not a good idea to intentionally include witchcraft in a cycle of reward and denial that will ultimately drain joy from the process until your passion is a withered husk.

Witchcraft isn't going to force your brain to change any more than Stardew Valley was going to force your brain to change. Or that time you got super into succulents. If your time spent studying wool quality in heritage European sheep breeds didn't cure your disorder, witchcraft won't either.

Witchcraft, I think, deserves to be something that is a part of your joy - not a part of a system of stressful attempts at making yourself into someone you're not because "real witches" all do such-and-such routine (I assure you, they do not) so you must force yourself to do it too.

(Incidentally, if you have a 'streamlined ritual for the important stuff' and it becomes a barrier that prevents you from practicing, then maybe that's not a good idea for you - or maybe it's not as simple and streamlined as you need it to be)

STOP trying to build a static path. Lean into temporary hyperfixations.

There is SO MUCH to learn in witchcraft. It's never-ending. The more you learn, the more doorways open for you with more things to learn behind them.

This is not college, you do not have to declare your major. You don't have to wait to decide on your 'magic specialization' before you start learning.

This is not college, you don't have to take semesters of boring general ed classes before you're allowed to start studying what interests you.

Unless you are getting into very serious initiations, learning stuff, advancing your skills, and building your path is not going to shut doors and prevent you from getting into something else.

If something excites your interests, GET INTO IT! Don't force yourself to ignore what you're passionate about because you think serious, responsible witchcraft is supposed to be rigid, boring, and tedious. (It isn't!)

Avoid declaring your major. As in, maybe the idea of energy glamours is super exciting, so on day 1 you create a lesson plan that will realistically take you 70 weeks to complete. Based on your history, is it reasonable that you will maintain this specific interest in glamours for over a year?

Avoid making lesson plans that intentionally slow you down and make shit boring for no good reason. If energy glamours interest you, are you (*scrolls up*) using energy glamours as a carrot to force yourself to engage in a tedious magical workout routine? Is the reason the lesson plan takes 70 weeks because you decided to spend weeks slowly moving through each phase so you have time to spam energy work exercises?

You know yourself better than I know you. Maybe wanting to slow down and engage in your focuses in a new way is the goal. Of course, listen to yourself first!

But if you have a temporary burst of energy and focus to learn a new skill, and learning that skill won't require you to make unhealthy personal or financial decisions, why not just lean into it and explore it moment by moment, wherever your interests take you?

I think you'd probably learn a lot more doing and undoing 20 glamours in a week, because you're freaking out about how fucking cool it is, than if you practice 1 basic glamor exercise once a day because that's what real disciplined witches do, and then 11 days later you forget it once and never do it again and now your interest has faded because glamouring is just another boring chore.

Invest some time and energy into figuring out exactly what your bare minimum of responsibility and upkeep actually is.

How often do you need to recharge your wards to keep them functioning normally?

Once you've explained your own needs and limits, how often do your spirits actually request offerings?

Are you 100% sure the spirits you're working with expect offerings in the first place?

Are those offerings expected to be physical, or do thoughts and prayers suffice?

How often should you perform a personal cleansing to keep yourself feeling magically refreshed?

Feeling anxious or guilty over whether or not you're supposed to be taking certain actions is NO FUN.

It is much less fun if you don't actually know how often you need to do these things. Then it's just all guessing, all the time, and nothing is ever good enough.

If at all possible, avoid putting yourself into a situation where you feel that you are supposed to be doing something responsible in your practice, but you're never sure exactly what it is.

Spend some practice time, learn some skills, and make notes, to discover whether or not you do have any minimum engagement requirements in the style of practice you want. And most importantly, having clear 'deadlines' so you don't have to keep guessing at what you're forgetting about this time.

[witchcastors]

Details in Purple

The New Bracelet, 19th century, by Frans Verhas.

Countess Alexander Nikolaevitch Lamsdorff, 1859, by Franz Xaver Winterhalter.

Summer Idleness: Day Dreams, 1909, by John William Godward.

Lady in Violet, 1874, by Pál Szinyei Merse.

Portrait of a Lady, c. 1570, by Alessandro Allori.

A Lady in a Lilac Dress, 19th century, by Władysław Czachórski.

That Was a Piedmontese, 1862, by Arthur Hughes.

A Gust of Wind, by Gaetano Bellei.

[witchcastors]

An Alternate Look at Correspondences

I see a lot of people speaking about correspondences in a way that doesn’t line up with my study and experience at all, so I figured I’d put something out there and see where discussion leads.

There’s a big narrative on Witchblr that correspondences are an entirely personal phenomenon: that the same herb may be used in entirely different ways by two people within the same practice, and that anything can be substituted for almost anything else with the right mindset. I’m going to challenge that some. 

Personal Correspondences can absolutely exist but I think it’s false to say it’s because of the ingredient itself. Let’s take chamomile: if it’s been used for very similar goals across traditions and cultures for generations, there’s probably a reason chamomile is associated with sleep. Our ancestors didn’t pull correspondences from nowhere, they were pulling what worked. (Now we have some science to break down ingredients and explain where some of that effectiveness came from, but we can’t do that with things like luck or love. I think it’s safe to assume the same trust in logic should be applied.) So if you want to use chamomile to add energy and it works, that says “My personal energy prompted by this ingredient is enough to override the energies of the ingredient itself and still be effective.” Which is awesome and totally a thing! But that’s you being a good energy worker, not chamomile being good for energy.  Substitutions absolutely can be made, magic is designed to be workable with what you have around you. That said, you need to understand the role that ingredient plays and substitute accordingly. You would never substitute sugar with salt in the kitchen just because they look the same, you’d substitute the sugar with something designed to add sweetness! Lemon juice and cream of tartar are wildly different ingredients, but both will work as stabilizers in sweets and can easily be substituted in that context. But I wouldn’t sprinkle cream of tartar over my salmon when I don’t have a lemon. Spells are recipes and the ingredient is there for a reason to play a role; substitute for that role just like you would in a kitchen.

and of course, Different Traditions are going to have different ways they believe ingredients and correspondences work, certain associations based on folklore, etc. which all plays a factor in variation as well. With so much variation and conflicting information, I think setting personal rules for ourselves about how we believe correspondences do (and don’t!) work is an important part in establishing a solid practice. If the ingredients can equally mean whatever, then why would we bother mentioning specific ingredients at all, you know? 

[witchcastors]

it’s completely acceptable to stay alive for tiny reasons. because you want to hear your favorite song one more time. because your dog will miss you if you leave. because the moon is just too pretty to never see again. because you haven’t seen the next season of a really good tv show. because you want to see the christmas lights this year. if you’re alive, you’re doing enough. if you’re surviving, i’m proud of you.